History Characters / Chinatown

* AesopAmnesia: PlayedForDrama. While on the force in Chinatown, his attempts to help someone led to [[NoodlIncident some sort of tragedy]], causing him to determine that he should simply do "as little as possible" so nothing like that ever happens again. However, he forsakes said mantra by deciding to accept Evelyn's hire and investigate Hollis' death, [[spoiler:which ends with Evelyn being killed and her daughter being captured, leaving Jake more traumatized than ever]].

->'''Played by:''' Creator/JohnHuston

[[folder: J.J. "Jake" Gittes]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/JackNicholson

[[folder: Evelyn Mulwray]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/FayeDunaway
[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0418_2.jpeg]]

[[folder: Noah Cross]]

[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0419.jpeg]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler: He's the corporate mastermind responsible for not only buying up the farmers' newly-drained land to control the water supply for his business partners but also raping his own daughter Evelyn Murray]].
* CardCarryingVillain: [[spoiler: A particularly serious, realistic, and horrific example of this trope. He's fully self-aware of his wrongdoing, but he doesn't care.]]
-->[[spoiler:"I don't blame myself. You see, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they're capable of '''ANYTHING'''."]]
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: [[spoiler: Noah Cross, already the richest man in Los Angeles, renders vast farmlands arid by illegally dumping their irrigation water into the ocean, thus causing their prices to plummet to next to nothing. After forcing the farmers to sell their land to his cabal of corrupt business partners, Cross intends to develop his newly acquired land by irrigating it with the water supply diverted from the city itself through a new aqueduct and reservoir built from $8 million of taxpayer money. His only gain from this elaborate swindle is "The future!"]].
* DespotismJustifiesTheMeans: [[spoiler: Noah Cross is already the richest and most powerful man in Los Angeles; he gladly admits he has no idea of how much wealth he really has except that it's over $10 million[[labelnote:*]]Equivalent to $180 million in 2020 dollars[[/labelnote]], yet goes ahead with his plan to seize control of the water simply because it will make him ''even more'' rich and powerful]]. [[spoiler: In his own words]]:
--> '''Gittes:''' Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat; what can you buy that you can't already afford?
--> '''Cross''': [[spoiler: The future, Mr. Gits! The future!]]
* DirtyOldMan: [[spoiler: He's someone in his senior years, and he turns out to be a pervert and a rapist]].
* EvilOldFolks: [[spoiler: Aside from being a greedy businessman who wants to steal the city water and make profits from the water, regardless of how the people manage themselves, he's also nasty enough to go possessive over his own daughter]].
* EvilSoundsDeep: [[spoiler: Just ''listen'' to Creator/JohnHuston's voice.]] Screenwriter Robert Towne once expressed that [[spoiler: Huston]] was the second-best-cast actor in the film next to Creator/JackNicholson. [[spoiler: Huston]]'s performance, he claimed, elevated [[spoiler: Cross]] above the portrayal in the script and made him truly memorable.
* FauxAffablyEvil: [[spoiler: This is the façade that Noah hides behind. He is genial and lighthearted throughout, even to his enemies but it only serves to highlight his utter inhumanity. Beneath, Cross is a living example of what a man is capable of doing if he had no moral scruples and no law to stop him]].
* GruesomeGrandparent: [[spoiler: Noah Cross ends up taking his granddaughter Katherine in after her mother Evelyn's death, clearly planning to rape her as he did to her mother, [[ParentalIncest resulting in Katherine's birth]]]].
* HateSink: [[spoiler: Cross lacks any redeeming character traits. He's unconscionably selfish and greedy, lacks any moral boundaries and is totally unapologetic about it, and is--most memorably and worst of all--an incestuous rapist and pedophile.]]
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Part of the DownerEnding of ''Chinatown'' is that Noah Cross gets away scot-free for his crimes and even takes Katherine, his daughter/granddaughter, away at the end. It's implied that he'll go on to molest her the same way he did his daughter]].
* MeaningfulName: [[spoiler:''Noah'' Cross, who is trying to gain control of all the water in Los Angeles. Noah Cross's original name in the script was Julian, so someone on the team probably decided to change the name sometime during production in realization.]]
* MinorMajorCharacter: [[spoiler: He's the BigBad of the film, but he gets around 10 minutes of screentime in total]].
* ParentalIncest: [[spoiler: With Evelyn, resulting in the birth of Katherine. The ending all-but-says he's planning an upgrade to ''grand''parental incest.]]
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: [[spoiler: He raped his daughter Evelyn, producing Katherine, who the ending implies is his next target.]]
* TheRichWantToBeRicher: [[spoiler: He's already obscenely wealthy and powerful, but he still wants to control Los Angeles's water supply for the sake of being even more rich and influential.]]
* RichBastard: [[spoiler: Definitely. Not only does he rape his own daughter, but he wants to swindle millions of dollars from Los Angeles taxpayers to seize control of the water supply]].
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: In the end, he is not threatened by Gittes's accusations of murder in front of the cops since he knows that he owns the police.
-->"Lieutenant, I am rich, I am Noah Cross."
* SmugSnake: Cross is never once caught without a self-satisfied grin or condescending tone.
* TheSociopath: [[spoiler: Noah will go down in history as one of the most heartless villains ever put to film. He is greedy, power-hungry, lecherous, utterly without any moral scruples, and believes everyone else is the exact same, just never in a position to realize it.]]
** [[spoiler: His lack of any guilt or shame in his crimes is palpable. When Gittes questions why he thinks Evelyn and Cross don't have a relationship, Cross remarks he 'doesn't blame himself.']]
* VillainousIncest: One of several things that really helps to cement him as a thoroughly nasty villain.
* VisionaryVillain: [[spoiler: He tries to justify his crimes towards everyone's thirst and his attempts to become wealthy (despite already being one of the richest men in town) by claiming it's for "the future"]].
* WalkingSpoiler: The only non-spoiler-related thing that can be discussed about Noah is that he is the wealthiest businessman in Los Angeles. [[spoiler: Everything else about him including his relation to Evelyn Mulwray and her daughter Katherine Mulwray as well as his role as the true Big Bad are whited out since it reveals much of the plot]].
* WeUsedtoBeFriends: Knew Hollis Mulwray for a long time but had a falling out. [[spoiler: In fact, he killed him.]]

[[folder: Lieutenant Lou Escobar]]
-> '''Played by:''' Perry Lopez

* [[spoiler: DirtyCop]]: YMMV, but depending on how you interpret [[spoiler: Jake's "as little as possible" line and Lou's reaction to it, Lou may either be just as traumatized by the events in Chinatown as Jake or implied to be complicit in the corruption of the city to ensure his job.]]

[[folder: Hollis I. Mulwray]]
->'''Played by:''' Darrell Zwerling

%%[[folder: Russ Yelburton]]

[[folder: Claude Mulvihill]]
->'''Played by:''' Roy Jenson

[[folder: Ida Sessions]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/DianeLadd

The fake Evelyn Mulwray.

[[folder: Katherine Mulwray '''(MAJOR SPOILERS)''']]
->'''Played by:''' Belinda Palmer

* ChildByRape: [[spoiler: She is this, due to Noah Cross's ParentalIncest on Evelyn Mulwray when she was 14.]]

[[folder: The Man with a Knife]]

[[folder: Detective Loach]]
-> '''Played by:''' Richard Bakalyan

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Escobar's partner with little characterization beyond that. [[spoiler: He shoots and kills Evelyn.]]

[[folder: Kahn]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/JamesHong

[[folder: Curly]]
->'''Played by:''' Creator/BurtYoung

* FatalFlaw: Jake doesn't know when to quit. Despite him telling [[spoiler:Fake]] Ms. Mulwray to "let sleeping dogs lie", he doesn't follow his own advice. [[spoiler: This leads to Cross getting one up over him.]]

* WeUsedtoBeFriends: Knew Hollis Mulwray for a long time but had a falling out. [[spoiler: In fact, he killed him.]]

* FatalFlaw: Jake doesn't know when to quit. Despite him telling [[spoiler:Fake]] Ms. Mulwray to "let sleeping dogs lie", he doesn't follow his own advice. [[spoiler: This leads to Cross getting one up over him.]]

* WeUsedtoBeFriends: Knew Hollis Mulwray for a long time but had a falling out. [[spoiler: In fact, he killed him.]]

--> '''Cross''': [[spoiler: See, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time, and the right place, they're capable of ANYTHING]].

* QuestionableConsent: In-universe. While Evelyn claims that she had an [[spoiler: abusive, but consensual, sexual relationship with Noah, the audience and other characters understand that it was rape because she was too young to consent. The legal age back then was 16, and she is 15 years older than Katherine. Noah being a ManipulativeBastard, he probably did what most groomers do and convinced her that it was her fault.]]

* EvilSoundsDeep: [[spoiler: Just ''listen'' to Creator/JohnHuston's voice.]] Screenwriter Robert Towne once expressed that [[spoiler: Huston]] was the second best-cast actor in the film, next to Creator/JackNicholson. [[spoiler: Huston]]'s performance, he claimed, elevated [[spoiler: Cross]] above the portrayal in the script and made him truly memorable.
* FauxAffablyEvil: [[spoiler: This is the facade that Noah hides behind. He is genial and lighthearted throughout, even to his enemies but it only serves to highlight his utter inhumanity. Beneath, Cross is a living example of what a man is capable of doing if he had no moral scruples and no law to stop him]].

* ChildByRape: [[spoiler: She is this, due Noah Cross's ParentalIncest on Evelyn Mulwray when she was 14.]]

* AntiHero: He has no qualms over manipulating people to get what he wants, or beating people up who oppose him. Still, Jake has good intentions [[spoiler:and wants to expose Noah for raping his own daughter as well as his plan to take control of the water supply as part of a real estate development scheme to drive farmers off from their land to build new homes]].

** Jake is quite smart, basically competent and if he were handling a simple case or a simpler situation than he might have succeeded, but in the end [[spoiler:he confronts forces of commerce, economics and political corruption bigger than he can comprehend or do anything about and just doesn't quite let go]].
** Incidentally, there's also the question of whether Jake's "successes" are a good thing. In the first scene he provides photographs of a client's wife committing adultery in the park and consoling the husband. Later Jake [[spoiler:seeks out his house as a way to get past Cross' goons and he sees the wife with a visible black eye, implying that his regular joke of taking photographs of cheating couples is not quite as decent he thinks it is]].

* HardboiledDetective: At least he ''tries'' to assume this persona to hide the fact that he's very vulnerable, lonely and bitter, and to cover up [[spoiler:how truly powerless he feels, which he finally confronts at the end]]. Indeed, Jake's insistence on putting on that macho, wiseacre personality likely [[{{Deconstruction}} makes him harder to be trusted and taken seriously]] by both Evelyn and the police.

* WouldHitAGirl: Slaps Evelyn repeatedly to get the truth out of her. When he comes to call in a favor from a man that hired him to find out if his wife was cheating on him, the wife opens the door sporting a huge black eye. In keeping with the DeliberateValuesDissonance, neither of these instances spark much outrage in-universe.

* CantSpitItOut: Evelyn struggles many times throughout the film to communicate some of her discomfort to Gittes but never quite gets herself to admit it fully until it's too late. This is understandable, on account of [[spoiler:the trauma she experienced and the social stigma of being not only a rape victim, but being raped by her rich and powerful father and fathering a child of incest, would make it difficult to confess to anyone, leave alone to Gittes, who initially came across as a snarky snooping gumshoe with a sleazy profile]].
** The first time is when she and Gittes are eating in the restaurant and Gittes flat out asks what's going on, noting that he got his nose cut and would like to know why. Gittes calls for the car and is about to leave before Evelyn yells out his name, in reflex before catching herself.

** The third time is right after Gittes tailed her to the house where [[spoiler:she keeps Katharine and Gittes confronts her about kidnapping Mulwray's "girlfriend" only for Evelyn to state that she's her sister and being disappointed when Gittes walks away again]].

* DarkAndTroubledPast: [[spoiler:Hers turns out to be that she was raped by her father and ran away at 15]].
* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:She gets shot through her flawed eye.]]

* BigBad: [[spoiler:He's the corporate mastermind responsible for not only buying up the farmers' newly-drained land to control the water supply for his business partners but also raped his own daughter Evelyn Murray]].
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: [[spoiler:Noah Cross, already the richest man in Los Angeles, renders vast farmlands arid by illegally dumping their irrigation water into the ocean, thus causing their prices to plummet to next to nothing. After forcing the farmers to sell their land to his cabal of corrupt business partners, Cross intends to develop his newly acquired land by irrigating it with the water supply diverted from the city itself, through a new aqueduct and reservoir built from $8 million of taxpayer money. His only gain from this elaborate swindle is "The future!"]].
* DespotismJustifiesTheMeans: [[spoiler:Noah Cross is already the richest and most powerful man in Los Angeles; he gladly admits he has no idea of how much wealth he really has except that it's over $10 million[[labelnote:*]]Equivalent to $180 million in 2020 dollars[[/labelnote]], yet goes ahead with his plan to seize control of the water simply because it will make him ''even more'' rich and powerful]]. [[spoiler:In his own words]]:

--> '''Cross''': [[spoiler:The future, Mr. Gits! The future!]]
* DirtyOldMan: [[spoiler:He's someone in his senior years, and he turns out to be a pervert and a rapist]].
* EvilOldFolks: [[spoiler:Aside from being a greedy businessman who wants to steal the city water and make profits of the water, regardless of how the people manage themselves, he's also nasty enough to go possessive over his own daughter]].
* EvilSoundsDeep: [[spoiler:Just ''listen'' to Creator/JohnHuston's voice.]] Screenwriter Robert Towne once expressed that [[spoiler:Huston]] was the second best-cast actor in the film, next to Creator/JackNicholson. [[spoiler:Huston]]'s performance, he claimed, elevated [[spoiler:Cross]] above the portrayal in the script and made him truly memorable.
* FauxAffablyEvil: [[spoiler:This is the facade that Noah hides behind. He is genial and lighthearted throughout, even to his enemies but it only serves to highlight his utter inhumanity. Beneath, Cross is a living example of what a man is capable of doing if he had no moral scruples and no law to stop him]].
--> '''Cross''': [[spoiler:See, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time, and the right place, they're capable of ANYTHING]].
* GruesomeGrandparent: [[spoiler:Noah Cross ends up taking his granddaughter Katherine in after her mother Evelyn's death, clearly planning to rape her as he did to her mother, [[ParentalIncest resulting in Katherine's birth]]]].

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Part of the DownerEnding of ''Chinatown'' is that Noah Cross gets away scot-free for his crimes, and even takes Katherine, his daughter/granddaughter, away at the end. It's implied that he'll go on to molest her the same way he did his daughter]].
* MeaningfulName: [[spoiler:''Noah'' Cross, who is trying to gain control of all the water in Los Angeles. Noah Cross' original name in the script was Julian, so someone on the team probably decided to change the name sometime during production in realization.]]
* MinorMajorCharacter: [[spoiler:He's the BigBad of the film, but he gets around 10 minutes of screentime in total]].
* ParentalIncest: [[spoiler:With Evelyn, resulting in the birth of Katherine. The ending all-but-says he's planning an upgrade to ''grand''parental incest.]]
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: [[spoiler:He raped his daughter Evelyn, producing Katherine, who the ending implies is his next target.]]
* TheRichWantToBeRicher: [[spoiler:He's already obscenely wealthy and powerful, but he still wants to control Los Angeles's water supply for the sake of being even more rich and influential.]]
* RichBastard: [[spoiler:Definitely. Not only does he rape his own daughter but he wants to swindle millions of dollars from Los Angeles taxpayers to seize control of the water supply]].
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: At the end he is not threatened by Gittes' accusations of murder in front of the cops since he knows that he owns the police.

* TheSociopath: [[spoiler:Noah will go down in history as one of the most heartless villains ever put to film. He is greedy, power-hungry, lecherous, utterly without any moral scruples and believes everyone else is the exact same, just never in a position to realize it.]]
** [[spoiler: His lack of any guilt or shame in his crimes is palpable. When Gittes questions why he thinks Evelyn and he don’t have a relationship, Cross remarks he ‘doesn’t blame himself.’]]

* VisionaryVillain: [[spoiler:He tries to justify his crimes towards everyone's thirst and his attempts to become wealthy (despite already being one of the richest men in town) by claiming it's for "the future"]].
* WalkingSpoiler: The only non-spoiler related thing that can be discussed about Noah is that he is the wealthiest businessman in Los Angeles. [[spoiler:Everything else about him including his relation to Evelyn Murray and her daughter Katherine Cross as well as his role as the true Big Bad are whited out since it reveals much of the plot]].

* [[spoiler: DirtyCop]]: YMMV, but depending on how you interpret [[spoiler: Jake’s “as little as possible” line and Lou’s reaction to it, Lou may either be just as traumatized by the events in Chinatown as Jake or implied to be complicit in the corruption of the city to ensure his job.]]
* HeroAntagonist: A detective just trying to do his job. In another noir film he’d be the lead hero or at least more helpful to Jake. Here, he’s a major obstacle at best and winds up making Jake’s life much harder.

* FireForgedFriends: Was this at one point with Gittes, before their relationship soured following the [[NoodleIncident situation in Chinatown.]]

* WeUsedToBeFriends: Seems to have a begrudging sense of camaraderie with Gittes due to their time working Chinatown together.

* HeroWithBadPublicity: The farmer thinks he's trying to steal their water, [[spoiler: he was actually trying to stop Noah Cross from stealing it for his own ends. Then his reputation gets ruined posthumously when he's framed as an adulterer]]

* MistakenForCheating:[[spoiler: His meeting with Katherine get mistaken for this by Jakes, and the photos are used to smear him.]]

* TheDragon: The most consistently encountered or [[spoiler: Cross’s thugs.]]

* DisposableSexWorker: She's a prostitute who ends up getting used [[spoiler:and killed]].

[[folder: Katherine Cross '''(MAJOR SPOILERS)''']]

* PintSizedPowerhouse: Doesn’t do much physically onscreen, but given his role as an enforcer [[spoiler: for Cross]] he probably is deceptively tough for his size.

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Escobar’s partner with little characterization beyond that. [[spoiler: He shoots and kills Evelyn.]]

* DomesticAbuse: Curly the client who meets Gittes in the opening scene is revealed [[spoiler:to have beaten his adulterous spouse. When Gittes redirects Lopez and Escobar to his house, the door is opened by his wife who sports a prominent black eye. When Curly introduces Gittes, his wife [[NiceJobBreakingItHero sneers in anger that she knows]] exactly who he is]].

[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0417.jpeg]]

* QuestionableConsent: In-universe. While Evelyn claims that she had an [[spoiler: abusive, but consensual, sexual relationship with Noah, the audience and other characters understand that it was rape because she was too young to consent. She doesn't see it that way because of Noah's manipulative behavior.]]

* FriendOnTheForce: Initially. he tries to get Gittes out of trouble.

*

* SmugSnake: He really likes to twist the knife in Gittes when he can.

->'''Played by:''' Burt Young

* AdultFear: Got evidence of corruption in the government? The rich and powerful will just cover it up. Not fair? Too bad; you're a nobody, so forget it, or even better "do as little as possible".

->'''Played by:''' Diane Ladd